Cloudbane
by EffingHorus
Summary: When an Astartes cruiser is ambushed by the forces of the Archenemy on a routine patrol, its crew finds itself outnumbered and outgunned. With no other option, they choose to do as much damage as possible. No matter the cost.


_**Unnamed system at the Edge of the Void**_

_**Irem Sector**_

Cingar glanced up and down the hallway with an ever-deepening frown. A drifting chartist ship at the very edge of Irem was bad news, especially when he couldn't tell *what* had killed it. Xenos? Traitors? Terrible luck? He didn't know - not yet, at least. For that, the squad hadn't advanced far enough yet. At least it hadn't been daemons, as far as he could tell. For that the wood-panelled hallways and rooms were too clean, that much he could tell even in the darkness.

The dead servitors and the handful of crew they'd passed looked like they'd died from starvation or thirst, rather than by the hand of an enemy. Probably just another ship blown off course by the Rift. The Heralds of the Tempest had found similar wrecks before on their patrols, and Cingar knew it was only a matter of time until the *Cloudbane* found a ship like that on its rounds as well.

He was about to say as much when his vox bead buzzed to life. The voice coming from it sounded almost as metallic as those of the Mechanicus Adepts, but he still recognised it with ease. Arun, commander of the _Cloudbane_, sounded oddly worried for someone whose vocal cords had been burned away many years ago. _'There's something on the instruments, lord.'_ There was a pause, but before Cingar could demand clarification, Arun continued. _'Ships, lord. A lot of ships.'_

Cingar frowned underneath his helmet as he continued down the hallway. It wasn't far to the bridge, and once they reached it, he was sure they'd be able to find out more about the vessel's death. 'More wrecks,' he asked although he doubted it.

'_Lord, I…' _Dials and brass keys clicked in the background as Arun worked his console. _'They're sending identifiers. It's traitors. They're asking for our surrender.'_

Cingar's squad passed him with their weapons up and glowing eye-lenses searching the corridor ahead, but he paid them no mind. Arun's words could mean only one thing: battle and his Astartes implants reacted immediately to that. Already he felt combat stims flooding in his veins and the pace of his hearts quicken. 'How many,' he asked slowly.

There was a brief pause before Arun's voice returned, distorted and grating as always. _'A battleship, lord. A cruiser and a few escorts. Too many for us to take on.'_

'How long till they're in range?'

Arun was quiet for a few seconds. Calculating, Cingar suspected. _'An hour. Maybe longer. Lord, they're fast. I think they'll run us down unless we go for an emergency jump.'_

Cingar's mouth turned dry. This soon after battling their way out of that last storm -

'Captain?'

The Nain's voice cut through his thoughts like the edge of the man's knife. Cingar looked up. He hadn't even realised that he had stopped, or that the rest of the strikeforce had turned to look at him. Even if he couldn't see the Nain's face, he could still feel the man's eyes boring into him from behind that sneering helmet. The warrior's vox made him hard to read already, but the monstrous mask with its curling horns and skull-grin dashed any hopes he had for reading the man behind it.

The others eyed him too. They were like ghosts in the dark corridor, the blue and grey of their armours almost melting into the shadows. Only the tiny bit of light reflecting off the Nain's mist white armour and the red of their eye-lenses stopped them from vanishing altogether.

Cingar drew a deep breath. The Nain tilted his head as he watched the Captain. Curiously? Or maybe suspiciously? He couldn't tell. 'Arun just voxed me. There're traitors in the system.' He locked eyes with each of the seven warriors before him, one after the other. 'Their ships outweigh us,' he said. 'They outgun us, and Arun says they'll outrun us, too.'

The squad before him became very still.

It was Sergeant Freo who gave voice to what all of them thought. 'The _Cloudbane_ can't take an emergency jump. Not after that bloody storm.'

The words hung in the silence between them. Everyone knew what they meant.

'Nain,' Cingar asked.

The man tilted his head to the other side and touched some of the bleached bones hanging across his chest plate. 'Don't ask a dead man about the fates of the living, Captain.' Cingar could have sworn that there was the slightest hint of admonishment in his voice. _I keep telling you this_, the tilt of his mask seemed to say.

With the eyes of the squad still on him, he inclined his head. 'They offered us to surrender, and Arun says we have about an hour till they're in weapons range.'

Freo understood without his captain having to say anything else. He snorted. 'And I say we bleed the damn bastards till their halls run red and their shrines get too small for their rotten bones.' His words were met with a shout of agreement from the rest of the squad, but it was the Nain the sergeant looked at. The warrior in his pale armour said nothing.

Thankfully neither Freo nor Cingar had to wait long for his reaction. Bones and stone talismans clattered against ceramite when the warrior lifted a gauntleted hand first to his brow, and then to his chest. Approval. The sign of respect, even.

Cingar nodded, his face settling into a stony smile. 'Let's greet the damned bastards, then.'

Cingar held onto his harness when the boarding torpedo cut its way through the thick skin of the battleship until it finally broke through and blew open. Only four out of the eight the _Cloudbane_ had launched had made it. The runes of the twenty-two other Heralds riding in them still glowed a steady green on Cingar's retinal feed. The rest… well, none of them expected to get out alive.

He was the first one out into the enemy ship, with his brothers following close behind. Chapter serfs in void sealed suits followed them with las pistols in their hands and short swords at their sides. The way they moved told Cingar that they hadn't quite recovered from the instant deceleration when the torpedo had crashed into the side of the battleship. Usually, he'd have given them time to recover, but not this time.

He scanned the landing site. Some gallery in the upper decks. The torpedo had broken through the hull plating between two armourglass windows and shattered the wood and stone decorating it. Chunks of it now littered the black and white stone tiles and crunched under the boots of his brothers as they secured the area. The mortals kept themselves behind them, guns pointing up and down the corridor.

'Anything?' Cingar turned to Sergeant Freo, but the man only shrugged as he checked his auspex.

'Nothing. They're probably dealing with the other boarding parties.' He glanced around, eying some of the carved columns that reached up to the distant ceiling. 'Or we're simply too far away from their battle stations.'

Cingar nodded slowly. The corridor was deserted, for all they could tell. He doubted it would stay that way for long. Checking the breaching charges clipped to his belt, he smiled grimly. 'Let's move, then. I want to get something done before the damned traitors catch us.'

He set off down the corridor, moving at a quick pace. Freo walked beside him with his auspex in hand and two of his men forming up around them. Another Herald covered their rear behind the serfs, who had to jog to keep pace. Now and then he glanced out into the void through the massive windows, where the _Cloudbane_ still fought the traitor fleet. The sight pained him, but only served to harden his resolve.

They'd hurt the traitors to make up for all the lives that would be lost.

As if prompted by that thought, his vox bead buzzed. '*We're too damaged to keep fighting, lord. It's time.*' Static laced Arun's machine-voice, but he heard the same grim determination in it, that he felt. Glancing at the chronograph in his retinal display, he swallowed. It had barely been minutes since they'd boarded the traitor ship. _'We're making for that cruiser. Salt and stone, lord.'_

'Salt and stone.' Cingar couldn't help but turn and look out into the void again. The _Cloudbane_ was out there, spitting broadside after broadside at the smaller escorts and fighters that swarmed it. From what he could tell, she'd killed one of them already and wounded another. Lances had torn brutal gashes into her grey and blue hull, and even as he watched, explosions rippled along her belly. The ship didn't slow, though. To Cingar, it seemed as if she only fought back harder.

He watched her crash into the side of the traitor cruiser like in slow motion. The blunt prow buried itself deep in the other vessel and the impact sheared off towers and spires from both ships, but Cingar didn't wait to watch them tumble into the void in a deathly embrace. He didn't need to see explosions ripple along both ships to know that both of them were dead.

They moved further down the gallery with their heavy steps echoing on the stone tiles. Even if the vessel wasn't crawling with daemons and deranged cultists, it still made him uneasy with the sense of _wrongness_ that permeated the air. He could have sworn he saw shadows move or angles shift strangely as they advanced, but every time he turned to look, there was nothing but empty alcoves or pools of shadow behind columns.

'No resistance,' Freo asked when they passed yet another empty corridor. 'Smells like a trap to me.'

'Aye. Probably behind that blast door.' The corridor around them didn't offer much in terms of cover, but what else was there for them to do? Cingar glanced over his shoulder. 'Ryd, place a charge, five seconds. You know the drill.'

Ryd, a warrior in the same grey and blue as his brothers and with the ragged hide of some sea creature draped over his shoulders, signalled his acknowledgement. With the other warriors taking their positions, he approached the door, but it slid open before he could reach it.

'Trap,' Freo shouted as biosignatures blinked into life on his auspex at the same time. The Heralds reacted instantly. With the door still rumbling open, they pulled grenades from their belts and lobbed them through the widening gap Ryd backed away from the door, just in time to avoid the explosion. It shook the corridor and sent plumes of smoke spilling from the door. Cingar's autosenses dimmed to protect him. Otherwise, the noise would have been deafening. From the way some of the mortal serfs stumbled as they backed away, he assumed they'd been less lucky.

The Heralds didn't wait for the smoke to fade when they opened fire, and the traitors did the same. Within moments the corridor was a kill zone filled with weapons fire. Cingar thought he heard a scream and an armoured body crashing to the ground somewhere in the smoke, but it was impossible to tell over the din of battle and the cries of dying serfs. They stood no chance against a force like that. All they could do was to fight back as much as they could and cripple the enemy where they could.

A bolt cracked into Cingar's pauldron and spun him around, just in time for him to see Ryd go down with his helmet half gone. Cursing viciously, he backed away. Just in time too, for moments later a wad of plasma splashed into the wall where his head had been half a second earlier. It burned through the ornamentation with the heat of a miniature sun and melted stone where it dripped onto the floor.

Cingar slammed a new magazine into his bolter and returned fire. Harsh shouts in a language he'd never heard before came from the smoke, along with more muzzle flashes. Targeting runes flashed across his vision as his warplate struggled to find the enemy in the cloud of smoke.

The traitors were not doing any better, no doubt there. Not with how their fire spread over the entire corridor. This was their best chance. Still firing, he drew his sword and said, 'Salt and stone.' That was enough.

He didn't look to see if the other two followed. Instead, he plunged into the thick smoke with the short blade in his hand. Bolt shells crashed into his armour and staggered him. He felt the ceramite crack and buckle and staggered when one shattered the servos on his right hip.

He pushed forward, even with artificial muscles seizing in his armour and turning his run more a quick limp. More bolts crashed into his plate. He felt their sting, but there was no way back now. Squinting into the smoke, he finally made out the traitor line: warriors in black and green, carrying pockmarked boarding shields and bolters.

Cingar leapt. He leapt far higher than any mortal could have and crashed into his opponent with enough force to stagger him. Form what little he could see, the only reason the Astartes hadn't gone down was the man behind him. Cingar didn't care. He plunged his short sword into the softer armour around the traitor's throat and grinned when light red blood flowed out. The man's knees buckled, but Cingar moved on. The next traitor reacted just in time, smashing his sword aside with the edge of his shield, but Cingar was faster. He brought his bolter up and fired one clean shot through the traitor's eye lens.

The other two had made it too if the clang of weapons was any indication. He had no time to look for them. He barely had time to keep himself alive, after all. He warded off a blow that would have taken off his head otherwise, but a blade caught him in the side before he could twist out of the way. He bit back a hiss of pain and instead tried to move - only to find himself snatched up by the neck and slammed into the decking with enough force to make his vision swim and shatter the tiles.

He blinked the sudden burst of static away from his retinal feed and tried to make out his enemy in the smoke. A terminator, that much he could tell, with his armour studded by spikes and small blades of ceramite. Burning red eye lenses bored into his as the terminator loomed over him. With his power sword hovering close enough to Cingar's throat to melt the colour from his armour, the terminator growled. It was an ugly sound, and the vox distortion only made it worse. 'Surrender or die.'

Cingar would have spat into the traitor's face, had it not been for his helmet. Anger and hatred burned in his chest and only intensified when Freo's rune-marker changed from deep amber to red, and then winked out. 'No,' he snarled back.

'Well, I told the Captain that would happen,' a voice from outside of Cingar's field of vision said. Even vox distortion couldn't hide the speaker's sneer. The terminator that held Cingar pinned lifted his shoulders with a growl of armour servos.

The last thing Cingar saw was the blade that swung down to end his life.


End file.
